<a href="http://news.sjvc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Nicole-Murakami.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-644" title="Nicole Murakami" src="http://news.sjvc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Nicole-Murakami-290x290.jpg" alt="" width="290" height="290" /></a>“I’ve always been the kind of person who likes to try new things, to be optimistic about change and not stay on the same road,” says Nicole Murakami, Administrative Health Care Management student at the <a title="SJVC Rancho Cucamonga" href="http://www.sjvc.edu/rancho-cucamonga/">Rancho Cucamonga campus</a>. She has a lot of change lined up for herself after graduation next July.

 For the moment, she is in total lock-down. Her Mon.-Thurs. morning classes are pretty intense, but still allow her to hold a full-time job at CostCo, where works a 1:30-10:00 pm schedule. Homework is squeezed into lunch breaks and weekends, which makes her social life fairly non-existent.

 “I have no outside life,” says Nicole, who has learned a hard lesson about who her ‘real friends’ are. “I’ve lost a lot of friends these last few months,” she says, “but the ones who stayed are really supportive.”

 Before coming to<a title="SJVC" href="http://www.sjvc.edu"> SJVC</a>, Nicole spent a lot of time in and out of Community Colleges. “I couldn’t get the classes I wanted and was losing motivation,” she says.  Nicole’s Aunt Linda, who graduated from <a title="Respiratory Therapy" href="http://www.sjvc.edu/respiratory-therapy/">SJVC’s Respiratory Therapy program </a>several years ago, suggested Nicole check out the college’s programs.

 “I really like that the classes are in 5-week blocks so that you are in and out fast and on to something new.” There’s that word again: new.

 Nicole likes the one-on-one attention students get from instructors. “Small class sizes give us lots of the focus we need to get what they’re trying to teach us,” she says.

 She especially likes her Sociology instructor, Mrs. Solis’, technique. “Mrs. Solis gets us involved and puts us into cultural and social situations we are studying.” “Using our life lessons makes it more fun.” Her enthusiasm for learning and participating in class has earned her a 3.8 GPA.

 Nicole became interested in Office Administration in a medical environment when she saw a good friend of hers doing so well ‘billing and coding’ for a medical facility.

“She loves her job, is well off financially and seems so happy,” says Nicole. It is a life Nicole knows she can have next year, as well, with her SJVC degree.

 Nicole envisions her new life in Eugene, Oregon – or maybe San Diego. She is sure the career move – and the change – will do her good.

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